Work commences on groundbreaking whole-body PET scanner

A new project to develop the world's first total-body positron emission tomography (PET) scanner has commenced in the US.

The University of California, Davis is leading the research, alongside the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Pennsylvania. The consortium's goal is to build a PET scanner that images the entire human body simultaneously.

Currently, PET scanners are only able to view 20 cm segments of the body at a time. A total-body scanner would not only be able to diagnose and track the trajectory of diseases in new ways, it would also reduce the radiation dose by a factor of 40, while cutting scanning time from 20 minutes to 30 seconds.

Work has now begun to develop electronics to send data collected by the scanner's detectors to a computer, which converts the data into a 3D image of the patient. The new scanner will have half a million detectors, making this a complex undertaking.

William Moses of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's molecular biophysics and integrated bioimaging division said: "We're developing the electronic interface between the detectors and the computer algorithm – and the electronics for this scanner is an order of magnitude more complicated than what's been done before."

It is hoped that a prototype version of the device can be produced in around two years.